Metro News & Reviews

Transportation headlines, Tuesday, March 23

Here’s a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the library’s blog. Don’t forget you can also follow the Metro Library on Facebook and Twitter.

LAist and KTLA take on one of Metro’s Twitter accounts that they say does not provide the right information in a timely manner. The I-405 Sepulveda Pass Widening project affects a lot of commuters and Eric Spillman from KTLA’s New Blog says that Metro and Caltrans press releases aren’t accurate while Zach Behrens of LAist notes that the project’s Twitter account and website has failed to report major closures. Metro’s Communications department say they’re set on resolving these issues.

David Lazarus of the L.A. Times spends a week riding public transit in Los Angeles only to come to the conclusion that it’s not very user-friendly and won’t draw people from their cars until it is. His main beef was with the fare structure, and how it doesn’t work well with the multitude of different transit providers serving the county. He’d like to see universal day passes and weekly passes that allow commuters to transfer to any local transit provider with ease. This was part of the promise of TAP – but the implementation so far has not lived up to the promises.

Human Transit has another interesting piece on the inner workings of transit planning, this time on the spacing of bus stops. When stops are too close together, bus service becomes excruciatingly slow, but when bus stops are too far apart certain groups, senior citizens usually, get upset because they rely on the bus to go short distances that they are unable to walk. Another plus of bus stops spaced further apart? Increased personal security because more people will be waiting at the stops.